Maybe more than I had, considering some of them had been transferred to my team when I came of age.
They were more experienced than I.
As I reached the center of the room, the temperature dropped ten degrees. The demon wasn’t excited to see me. I could see him, although others could not. That was fine. The general population knew to call when they sensed external signs. Living in the end of days made things complicated. Though I’d never known any different.
I withdrew a handful of dust I kept in a bag, then blew it forward. The slight breeze picked up the particles before wrapping them in a whirl until it landed on the invisible demon. The outline of the demon became visible to my guards.
“Got it, Sister,” One called out. I didn’t turn to look at him, my focus on the eight-foot-tall horned monster who destroyed everything it touched. He didn’t belong on our world, but he was here, and the sad fact was, within the next four decades, there would be more of them than us. This was becoming their world. I could only bandage it. There wasn’t a soul left who could stop them anymore.
Those who had been powerful enough were all dead.
I forced the tired, dour thoughts from my mind. If I gave the creature an inch, it would take a mile. And then I could join those from our order who were gone, no longer a use to anyone. My guards would be killed along with their families.
I could not lose. Ever.
Hand raised, I challenged the unclean creature blocking us in the language of Divinity.
To the others listening, it would sound like gibberish. I couldn’t explain to anyone why I understood it or why I could speak it with my tongue, but all of the women at the Sisterhood of the Rising Sun could.
“Be gone, you unclean thing.”
He roared, bending over to stick his face in mine. He was a toucher. I hated those. I stepped back, needing distance from the dead stink the creature carried with him.
“You will not win this battle, woman. You are tired and malnourished. All of you are. You don’t even know what you need. That is what makes it all so sad. My kind is old and we know more than you—we will always beat you.”
I ignored his words. Demons lied. They always did. “I think you might be underestimating my strength. I was born to defeat you. The Divinity denies your presence here. Be gone.”
Then the heat hit me. I pushed back. My body burned where the painted signs on my body let me tap into my power. I struggled to bring my powers to full force. I really was working at half-capacity. Wind picked up around me, and light surged around me. My skin faded and then my bones and internal organs. I was nothing but coolness to the creature’s nasty nature.
Time disappeared. Did we battle for centuries? With a roar to the heavens, or maybe to hell, he vanished into a pile of dust at my feet. I returned to my mortal body, struggling to breathe, to think, to feel. Everything hurt. The return from the fight, the push back into my own self, and not whatever made me connect to Divinity, had never been so staggeringly difficult before. It had to be the unplanned stop in the hole. My powers turning on too early had nearly defeated me.
I hit the ground, falling to my knees before catching myself with my hands. The sounds of the demonically possessed told me I’d drawn the wrong kind of crowd. Soon those sounds stopped, and strong hands scooped me up.
I raised my head to look, even though the light hitting my pupils was nothing but pain. Two carried me, his face hard as he stormed forward away from the factory and toward my carriage.
“Are you okay? Is everyone okay?” Had anyone been hurt? It was always my first concern.
He lowered his eyes to regard me. “We’re fine, Sister. You’re not. I’ve never seen you fall like that.”
He was right. There was a first time for everything. I fainted in his arms.
Sisters didn’t faint. That was the first thought to hit my mind as I gasped, trying to sit up. I was still in my hood, and it was hard to breathe. I couldn’t take it, not anymore. I ripped the hood off my head, unthinking, just needing air. There was so little breath in my body.
Five different noises caught my attention after I threw the hood off. They varied from gasps to groans. I was in the carriage. It wasn’t moving. I’d taken off my hood, and my five guards had seen my face. This was highly untraditional. Most guards went their entire ten years—if they made it that long—without ever seeing the face of the Sister they protected.
“I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes quickly. “I can’t breathe. No one has to know. It’s too hot. I won’t tell anyone. But you can if I’m making you uncomfortable. You’ll be reassigned. This is my fault.”
I fought for air until a cool hand touched my forehead. The gentle caress brought me down from my panic. I opened my eyes to see One staring at me. I couldn’t read his facial expressions. Men were like foreign objects to me. How was I supposed to understand what he was thinking?
“Sister Anne, it’s okay. We understand. This has happened before to other Sisters. It’s not talked about to protect the Sister in question. You are nowhere near the first one to rip off a hood. They say it shouldn’t happen, but it’s okay. You scared us. We’ve all gotten so used to you being so strong. Was it that powerful an abomination?”
“I might not have been one hundred percent up to par.” I forced myself to sit up.
“I knew it.” Three kicked the ground. “The rules stop us from using our brains. I knew she wasn’t right in the carriage, and I have no ability to tell her no.”
I held up my hand. “I only went forward with the exorcism to keep you all safe. If I don’t perform my duties, you get heat for it.”
Four sat down next to me, rubbing my back gently. “We get more heat, Sister Anne, if you die. I’d rather explain why we kept you alive.”
His simple logic floored me. Why didn’t I ever think clearly? “Fair enough. Three, if you want to tell me no, tell me no. I’ll listen. If I can. Sometimes when my powers activate, I can’t stop them. Today I might have stayed in the carriage. No one has to know you said anything. Unless you want them to. I’d never, ever, stand in your way to be comfortable.”
“Wow,” Five chimed in. “She really is the Weird Sister.”
My mouth fell open, and One winced. I wasn’t sure what the others did as my gaze fell right to the ground. I’d known they hated me, but this was more than I’d realized. “Is that what they call me? Talk about all my worst fears being vocalized.”
“The four of us have never referred to you as such, and Milo—Five—will never say so again.” Venom laced One’s words.
Well, there it was. I raised my eyes. Five, the first of my guards to have a name I knew, looked down. I didn’t want him uncomfortable. He was new, and we all had to be together, unless they were all taken away from me after the debacle that was today. He wasn’t wrong. I was weird. It hurt, but the truth sometimes did.
I took the hood from where I’d thrown it. I hated to have to put it on again, but rules were rules. “Well, now you can all know that not only am I weird, but I look like a red-headed fisherman’s wife. Not particularly sisterly.” I shoved the hood back on and leaned back in the seat. “I’ll be more careful in the future and try to guard myself from behaving in any way off the correct path. I don’t want you to be embarrassed to be my guards. Thank you for your care and concern. We should go.”
Probably, thanking them was the wrong move. That was one of the weird things other Sisters didn’t do, and although I’d thought I was showing them kindness and treating them with respect, perhaps I’d misunderstood. Sisters were one thing, guards another.
I had to do better to keep myself in check.
Operation Don’t Be Weird wasn’t going well. I hadn’t taken a whipping for helping the baby, but no one had been happy just the same. Sister Katrina had pursed her lips, which constituted a lot of emotion for her. I was on kitchen duty for the next three weeks, washing dishes since no one wanted me to cook—and with good reason.
/> It had been a week since I’d seen the guards, the longest time the Sisterhood had ever chosen to keep me home and not send me out. One pot that had stored some red sauce the guards had eaten the night before was being particularly difficult to get clean. Snow fell on the ground outside, and I stopped to watch it. The flakes were so deceptively beautiful. They seemed like they were one thing, when they were actually quite different. The lovely death-bringer. We were always warm in our home. But the guards were different. They slept in barracks, divided by their teams, which meant my five were together, probably huddled around a fire. Probably cold.
I’d seen the insides of the barracks when I was twelve, having been sent out to bring supplies for a sick guard. They weren’t going to freeze to death, but neither were they going to be warm and snuggly.
I shook my head. My thinking was the problem. Sisters didn’t worry about things like the comfort or lack thereof their guards endured. Sisters assumed their guards were fine. I finished the bowl and shoved it down with more force than necessary. What was wrong with me?
I sank to my knees. Alone in the kitchen was a good place to right myself. Why was I this person? Okay, I could kill demons, even at half-strength, but in every other way possible, I wasn’t right. I shouldn’t be a Sister. I wasn’t cut out for it. Did Sisters ever quit? No one had ever indicated such a thing was possible. I knew retirement might become an option at age forty or older, but what did they do with defunct twenty-two-year-olds?
I wiped the escaping tears from my eyes, then rose to my feet. A knock on the kitchen door caught my attention, and I moved quickly to answer it.
One stood in the hallway. He dressed casually, not geared up to fight anything. Instead, he had brown pants and a gray hooded shirt on. One looked like the men I saw on my ventures out of the sisterhood. He’d fit in outside of here, which was great since he had four more years to go and then he would be one of them. He could then actually use his real name.
“Hello, Sister Anne.” He rocked back on his feet. “I was told you were in here. I asked one of the initiates to go get you from your quarters and ask if you’d speak to me. They said you were in here. As it’s acceptable for Guards to be in the kitchen, I came over.”
He was right. The kitchen could be a common area. On a few occasions, the guards came in to get something themselves, which was why we had to use our hoods in the common area.
“How can I help you?” That was the correct response. I would only make them from now on.
“Well.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. His blond hair, still pulled back in the bun, looked messier than I was used to seeing it. Dark circles marred his lovely face. “I haven’t been able to rest for a week. I’m afraid we hurt you, emotionally. That would never be our intention. Even Five. He’s new, and honestly, for as incredible a fighter as he is—which is why I sought him out for the position—he has foot-in-mouth disease and wants to throw himself over a cliff for the way his words seem to have wounded you.”
I wanted to laugh at the description, but I didn’t. Sisters didn’t laugh at things Guards said. I was going to be correct. I had to be.
“I …” I didn’t even know how to respond. “I worry I am the cause of embarrassment for the five of you, and as far as I can tell, you are all the best of the best. I don’t want you to wish you worked for someone else. This is a decade of your life. It must feel like jail, an incarceration you agreed to in order to move your families out of the Deadlands. But I’d rather it be pleasant and not all horrible.”
His eyes widened, and he fell to his knees. “My lady—”
“I am not any kind of a lady.”
One shook his head. “You certainly are. Sister Anne, this is not a jail. Being with you, seeing what you can do and how strong and brave you are … it makes me want to be stronger, too. You treat us with such respect. It’s a gift from the divinities that you are my Sister.”
My heart raced. I’d never been spoken to like this in my entire life nor had I ever expected to be addressed so. “Please rise, One. I wouldn’t have you on your knees. You are an amazing man. There is never a need for you to lower yourself to me. I’m a woman, a peasant, who happened to have this strange gift. I should be thanking you more than I do, but I can’t figure out what is right and what makes you all want to run for the hills. Day after day, you go out there and might die to keep me, a woman you hardly know, alive. You’re brave beyond my knowledge to express. But I do everything wrong with the five of you.”
He raised his eyes to mine and rose. “You are our Sister. What you do, therefore, is inherently correct. Always. And I know that Mason, Garrett, Kieran, and even Milo feel the same way. I’m sorry; that’s Two, Three, Four and Five.” He reached out to touch the side of my gown by my arm, gently. He tugged on it slightly. The gesture seemed almost like he did it unconsciously more than anything else.
I lowered my voice. “What is your name, One?”
He smiled and nodded his head. “I’m Bryant. And I am always at your service, Sister Anne.”
Three
One left shortly after our discussion. I still wasn’t sure why we’d had it. He was a man of honor, that much was clear. Even though I knew they all disliked me, he wanted to make sure I was at ease. I appreciated the gesture. Maybe he’d worried I would report them for hurting my feelings. Didn’t he know that Sisters had none to hurt?
I stood in front of my mirror and stared at myself. I didn’t wear my uniform. In my own rooms, I refused to. My three women had come in and shorn my hair again. They did it every four to six weeks. Chopped off my hair so I could be more comfortable in my hood. My curls refused to behave and poked out from my scalp like little snakes threatening to bite something. Red snakes ready to slither …
If I’d lived outside of the sisterhood, my red hair would be a detriment to my life, a sign of the demon. Women with red hair were almost never chosen for wives. Men could have red hair, like Five—Milo—and, according to Sister Katrina, my father, and they were fine. It was women who weren’t to be trusted, women for whom the red hair was the mark of the devil.
But my hair stayed hidden under my hood, and my ability to beat the demons spoke well of me. I would never be allowed to marry. What the world thought of my hair color mattered little. If I’d stayed a peasant, it was likely my family would have dyed my hair weekly to hide the strands.
I was lucky to have been spared the onerous chore.
I touched my cheek. Redheads were naturally pale, and I seemed to be more so today than ever before. As a child I’d had rosy cheeks. They were long gone.
A knock on the door sounded, and I called permission to enter. Jayne or Molly always stopped by this time of day for a chat. I had little to contribute lately, but I liked the noise.
Instead, it was Sister Katrina. I quickly glanced at my attire. I was acceptable for staying in my rooms. My white slip was modest and what I was expected to wear. Some days I wore my robe instead. That would have been a big mistake if Katrina had seen me in it.
She was very interested in protocol.
I curtsied. “Sister Katrina.”
She nodded. “Sister Anne. I’ll get right to the point.”
I tried to swallow. “Okay.”
“You have been on my mind a great deal since the baby incident. I’ve spoken to your friends. If I’d realized you were denying yourself physical pleasure, I’d have stepped in earlier. You need release. We all do. Our jobs are too difficult otherwise. Tonight, you’ll have sex with one of your guards.”
My heart pounded in my ears. “I don’t want to.”
“I didn’t ask what you wanted. Tonight, pick one, or I’ll pick one for you.”
I could hardly breathe. I looked anywhere, everywhere to try to compose myself. The snow outside caught my sight, and an idea formed. I didn’t have time to consider whether it was smart or not. “I’ve been thinking on the subject.”
“Yes?” She looked bored. I wasn’t sur
e how I knew. Her facial expressions hardly ever changed, and to an outsider, she would appear blank right now. But I knew. She was bored.
“What about all five? What if I had all five of them tonight? Sort of throw myself right in.” The idea was so preposterous I could have laughed. But Katrina didn’t.
She put her hand on her hip, a big motion. “You might be more like me than I realized. It’s smart. The best way to get over a hurdle is to smash it. All five. Enjoy. I’ll see to it they’re sent here.”
I waited until the door clicked behind her before I sunk to my knees. I wasn’t having sex with anyone tonight. At least they’d all be warm and out of the snow. If this was found out, I had just determined my next beating. I’d lied to Katrina.
Sisters never lied.
I paced my rooms. Everything was clean, and the blankets and pillows I’d collected from the storage rooms were in place. My hood itched. The guards would be in my personal space soon. Dread at their arrival settled in my stomach. If I was honest, I was deeply attracted to all of them, even Five whom I’d met the week before, but I would never call for someone to have sex with me. They shouldn’t be forced to service me. I was too sensitive to share intimacy with someone who didn’t love me. I’d always known it about myself. Brief touches, okay. Not sex.
It shouldn’t matter, yet it did.
I opened the door on the first knock to find them all there. With a nod to Sister Teresa, who walked them in, I allowed them to file in before I closed the door, leaving her in the hall. If she and Sister Katrina were all-consumed with my sexual status, then let them all think I was giving them what they wanted.
I tried to steady myself. “Hello. Good evening.” I kept my back straight. “This is odd, I know. They’re insisting I call someone for sex. I can’t do that. Never could. So I thought maybe I’d kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. It’s cold out there. You can be warm in here. All of you. I’ve set up beds all over, and my own bed is there.” I was speaking way too fast, but I couldn’t slow. Instead, I pointed to the bedroom. “I’ll spend my night in the small couch in the dressing room. You’ll be comfortable. Tomorrow, if you want to tell of my farce, you can. How’s that sound?”